Sports pitches across the Atlantic are set to benefit from innovations developed by Linemark as it invests in ramping up production in advance of an assault on the North American market.

The Rossendale-based firm’s products are seen by millions of sports fans every week at football, rugby and cricket grounds and now it is targeting the United States and Canada for its next phase of expansion.

It has become a market leader in the field of markings and 3D logos on the pitches – all from humble beginnings in a Lancashire shed.

The firm is now a multi-million turnover business with 30 staff, which also produces pitch-side signs used in the world’s most famous arenas.

Its success is based on an innovation by directors Tony Holt and his industrial chemist brother-in-law Jan Korab, which saw them win a Queen’s Award for Innovation earlier this year.

Mr Holt, a former PE teacher, said: “It took years to achieve, but we found the cheapest and most environmentally-friendly way of painting lines on pitches.”

Linemark’s primary product is Impact paint, which took three years to perfect. It means a regulation football pitch can be marked out using just 2.8 litres of white paint instead of 20 litres using traditional techniques.

Impact soon found fans at the country’s most prestigious venues.

“The people at Manchester United couldn’t believe it,” said Mr Holt. “We went from selling zero litres to 600,000 and it kept growing. We can’t keep up with the demand now.”

The company is based at Riverside Business Park and is to invest £100,000 in machinery to increase manufacturing capacity. Linemark staff currently make 10,000 litres of paint a day, as well as assembling the machinery used to apply the paint and managing distribution.

All product development is done at Linemark’s laboratory.

Mr Holt said: “Whenever we come out with something new we are trying to improve on it straight away before anyone else can copy it.

“We are constantly asking ourselves how can we make our products better, cheaper and faster. We are currently working on getting it down to half a litre of paint to mark a football pitch.

“That will really help with our transport costs when it comes to exports, which currently make up around 20 per cent of revenues.”

He added: “We know export is really where it is at for our paint and machine products.

“We are already exporting to Australia, Germany, France, Denmark and South Africa.

“The next target is to recruit distributors in the US and Canada, which is such a massive market we are likely to set up manufacturing operations over there too.”

Linemark staff are also kept busy applying eye-catching 3D logos seen on sports pitches every weekend. Mr Holt said: “We want to be global. We have a very high profile.

“I know that if I put Sky Sports on, within five minutes some of our work on Premier League and Championship football grounds across the country is on there.

“I like watching Liverpool against Manchester United and knowing that’s our work on the pitch.”